Thirty-six years of war and state-sponsored violence has left seemingly irreversible physical and psychosocial damage in communities throughout Guatemala. Those who survived the torture of family members, massacres, and displacement frequently lived under a code of silence. The San Marcos Pastoral Project for Solidarity and Reconciliation has participated in the Recovery of Historical Memory Project sponsored by the Human Rights Office of the Archdiocese of Guatemala, a major effort to break that silence and record the genocide, torture, rapes, kidnappings and militarization of society, and to press for justice.

The Martín-Baró Fund grant to this organization will support workshops through which survivors share their traumatic experiences and work together to find ways to solve their individual and community problems in a spirit of solidarity. It will facilitate training workshops for 40 “animators of reconciliation” who will then offer a series of three participatory workshops (for 30 participants in each community) focusing on: 1) the Guatemalan Historical Context, 2) Violence – focusing on strategies behind the violence and its effects on communities, and 3) the challenges of repairing the social fabric.